Although quiet, he could hear someone calling “Will. Will, where are you? Give me a sign as to which cell you’re in. We need to get out of here and quick.”
Realising this was likely to be a friend, rather than someone from this alternate universe, he moved to the door and beat it with his fists, hoping he was right.
After a minute or so, he heard the voice call “OK, I think I have you. Move away from the cell door. I’m coming in.”
As asked, Will moved away from the door, just in time for it to open and see a fully suited individual standing there brandishing a weapon, pointing at him.
“Will?” said the figure.
Slightly surprised, Will could only nod at the figure.
“Good. We need to get out of here, now. I’m Major Auryn Truran and my team are here to make sure we get out of here safely. Do you have a suit? If not, we have a standard one you can use.”
“I don’t have mine. They took it off me” replied Will.
“OK. We’ll sort that out.”
Switching to the radio, he called his team so they were all together and pressed the button on the remote, sending them back.
Pointing at the spare suit on the floor, Auryn said “OK, Will. Get this on and don’t hang about. We need to get out of this base as quickly as we can. One of the guards managed to trigger the alarm and it won’t take them long to work out what’s happened and follow us here.”
As Will started to put the suit on, Auryn used his radio to say “Captain Lockwood. Got him. However, I’m expecting incoming at any moment so we need to get out of here. Be ready to repel enemy troops.”
“Yes, Major” was the brief response.
As soon as Will was suited up, Auryn moved him to the airlock and they went through to the rear hangar. Once clear of the airlock door, Auryn started to jog towards the lander. As he approached it, he heard the sound of gunfire from behind him. He turned to look behind and saw the hangar now contained a number of enemy soldiers chasing them, firing in their direction. Fortunately, at the moment, they were currently far enough away that their shots were mostly missing them. Whilst his suit and that of the other marines would protect them from this level of gunfire, Will’s suit was only a standard emergency suit and offered no protection from it. Ducking behind a workbench, he was able to get a better view and estimated that there were around twenty or thirty enemy troops heading their way at full speed.
“Sergeant, we need to get Will out of here. Make sure that you protect his back. All we need is a stray shot to hit his suit and we’re going to have a problem getting him out of here. Take three people with you. The rest stay with me and we’ll slow this lot down a bit while you get Will to the lander.
“Yes, Sir” replied the Sergeant, ushering Will towards the lander. As they turned to enter the doorway, Will was briefly unprotected by his support troops and was hit in the right shoulder, sending him forward. The agony was intense and he nearly fell over. However, there was enough support nearby to stop him falling all the way.
“Will, you need to grip your suit, to make sure the air doesn’t escape any faster than it can be replaced” advised the Sergeant.
Holding back the pain, Will clutched his shoulder as tightly as he could. As he squeezed the suit’s fabric, though, the pain became more intense and he cried out in agony.
“Sorry, Will, forgot to mention that” called the Sergeant, and helping Will to sit down on one of the benches, moving towards Will to apply a sealing patch to his suit. Whilst it wouldn’t do anything for his gunshot wound, it would keep his air supply intact. The suit’s air supply would quickly replace that lost through the damage.
“Major, we’re on the lander” he said.
“Thanks, Sergeant. We’ll retreat.” With that, he threw a stun grenade towards the enemy troops and was relieved to see that this one went off. The amount of gunfire coming towards them immediately dropped off, although someone seemed to have escaped the grenade’s effects, as the gunfire didn’t stop entirely. He felt, however, that it was low enough for him and the remaining troops to get safely to the lander.
Moments later, the marines were safely on board, although one had fallen en-route and had twisted their ankle.
“Let’s go” he called and the lander lifted from the ground and shot towards the main hangar doors and out into the open. “Everyone else get out of here, now.”
“Captain, once the landers are clear, you know what to do.”
As he saw the base explode through one of the lander windows, the Major breathed a deep sigh of relief. He regretted the loss of the lives of the soldiers who had pinned them down but recognised that there was little he could do about it.
“Will, just hang on there. We’ll be at our ship in a couple of minutes. Once we’re there, medics will deal with your wound and give you something to numb the pain.”
A combination of the pain and the reduced level of oxygen caused by the hole in his suit made it so that Will was feeling a little light-headed, so didn’t quite know what to say in reply, so just nodded. He’d never been shot before and hadn’t realised just how painful it was.
Five minutes later, the lander entered the landing bay of the Sea Lion and set down.
As the lander door opened, a pair of medics entered and helped Will out. The marine who had twisted her ankle was helped out by one of her colleagues, heading for the sick bay.
Chapter 3
An hour later, resting on a sick bay bed, Will was pleased to see a small group of visitors approach him.
Billy moved forward “Am I pleased to see you again, Will. Let me introduce you to a few friends. These are Lieutenant Sarah Hirst of the police and Major Auryn Truran of the marines. Between them, they got you out of the other universe.”
“You had us worried back there, getting shot like that” said Auryn, holding out his hand to Will.
“Glad to have you here, Will” said Sarah, also offering her hand.
“I must say, I’m really happy to see this universe again. I’d be even happier to get back to my own universe, though, but can’t see that happening any time soon.”
“Thanks to you and Billy, we’ve been able to thwart an attack on the system. Whilst we know that the problem may come back, we now have a lot of information that we didn’t have before, as well as an ability, we hope, of catching them before they can do any damage here. Their leader’s office had loads of data in it that will keep our intelligence section busy for quite some time. We also have a device that will let us visit their universe, although finding anyone to volunteer to be the one to go there isn’t going to be all that straightforward!” said Auryn.
“You mean the office of the Exalted General Willem Gott. Can’t say I took to him” replied Will “So, what happens now? Whilst I guess I’m stuck here, I have no job, no money and no identity.”
“Once you’re up to it, I think a debrief is in order, so we can learn what you picked up over there. We also have a prisoner ourselves when Billy and Sarah went through to have a quick look, as well as their two spaceships, which our military designers are no doubt anxious to have a look at. I think we can get you started, at least. I think we can probably sort out a reward that will give you a bit of money” said Auryn.
“And I think we ought to be able to get you an ID and some accommodation at Columbus. It won’t be classy but at least it will be somewhere you can call home until you can get yourself sorted out. We ought to be able to sort out some sort of a job although it isn’t likely to be exactly what you’re used to.”
“Wow! Thank you guys” was all Will could say.